Colleen Thurston

Colleen Thurston is a nonfiction media producer, educator, and film programmer from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She holds a degree from the University of Arizona in Media Arts and Anthropology, and earned her Masters of Fine Arts from Montana State University's one-of-a-kind Science and Natural History Filmmaking program. Specializing in short form non-fiction production, her films tend to explore the relationships between humans and the natural world, and often focus on Indigenous stories and perspectives.

Colleen has worked for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Channel, and has produced and crewed documentaries for museums, public television stations and federal agencies. She also produced and directed short documentaries for four seasons of the Cherokee Nation’s series, Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People, earning two Emmy awards for her work as a producer and writer.

In August 2019, Colleen followed her passions for education and storytelling into a position in academia, teaching the next generation of documentary filmmakers as an Assistant Professor in the University of Arkansas School of Journalism and Strategic Media.

Colleen is a 2019-2021 Firelight Media Documentary Lab fellow, a member of the Choctaw Nation and a seventh generation Oklahoman. She is currently in production on her first feature length documentary,_ Drowned Land,_ which deals with water rights issues in the Choctaw Nation.